Cisco's 2026 agenda prioritizes AI-ready infrastructure, connectivity
The enterprise remains a key target for Cisco, which is keen to deliver the technologies to enable AI transformation, digital resilience and workforce transformation.
Analysis by Michael Cooney, Network World
Cisco set a high bar for itself in the new year after a prolific 2025.
Last year, Cisco refreshed its core switching and router portfolios, adding new software capabilities for the data center in 2025. It also made a number of AI networking moves, including the introduction of the Cisco 8223, a high-end, 51.2 Tbps router and chip designed for distributed AI workloads.
In addition, Cisco expanded its NVIDIA relationship with a number of joint offerings, including the Cisco N9100 series data center switch. The 64-port, 800Gb Ethernet switch is powered by NVIDIA's Spectrum-4 ASIC, which is designed for AI, high-performance computing and cloud data center networks that require ultra-low latency, congestion control, and predictable performance.
Cisco also teamed with NVIDIA and VAST Data to offer customers a pre-integrated AI infrastructure package, including compute, network, storage and data, to support AI workload data fabrics as well as large-scale training and inference.
The demand for AI infrastructure has already begun to impact Cisco's earnings, and the vendor expects continued growth.
At the close of its 2025 fiscal year in late July, Cisco reported revenue of $14.7 billion for the fiscal fourth quarter, which is up 8% compared to the year-earlier quarter. Annual 2025 revenue came in at $56.7 billion, which is up 5% from the previous year.
"Enterprise product orders were up 5% year-over-year in Q4 [while] networking product orders grew double digits in Q4, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth," CEO Chuck Robbins said at the time. "There is strong interest from customers in the new family of Cisco Catalyst 9000 smart switches, along with a completely refreshed lineup of highly secure routers, wireless access points, and industrial IoT devices, which are purpose-built for the AI-ready campus and branch."
Expect Cisco to continue adding to and solidifying these products in the coming year, industry watchers say, as the vendor goes after what it sees as a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar refresh opportunity in the enterprise networking arena.
Infrastructure modernization fueled by Cisco-NVIDIA pairing
Technology solutions provider World Wide Technology recently published its IT infrastructure Modernization Priorities for 2026 report, which found that many organizations are still reliant on outdated, legacy infrastructure that is ill-equipped to handle modern workload requirements. The rise of AI has heightened the importance of IT modernization, World Wide Technology said.
Cisco's wide-ranging partnership with NVIDIA reinforces its plans to promote that kind of modernization.
For enterprise customers, one of the most interesting parts of the Cisco-NVIDIA collaboration is the tie-in between Cisco's Silicon One-based switches and Cisco N9100 Series Switches that incorporate NVIDIA's Spectrum-X Ethernet switch silicon and are managed from the Cisco Nexus dashboard.
"Embedding Spectrum X technology into a Nexus environment, where customers already likely have the skill sets, they know how to manage and run that environment, is a brilliant move," Neil Anderson, vice president and CTO of cloud, infra, and AI solutions for World Wide Technology, told Network World. "If you're a bank customer for example, you may have already qualified on Nexus. Now all you have to do is incorporate the Nvidia technology — it just accelerates the ability to adopt it and support it."
One of the reasons NVIDIA is partnering with Cisco is because they know that this distributed phenomenon is going to happen, Anderson said. "And they need somebody that's got deep network experience to extend a cluster and make it distributed."
Another element of the NVIDIA partnership that's expected to influence Cisco's 2026 efforts is the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, which brings together Cisco security and networking technology, NVIDIA DPUs, and storage options.
"The notion of a secure AI factory and what they're doing with NVIDIA there is unique in the market to me, and it resonates with our clients. Because if you're going to run your intellectual property on that distributed cluster, you've got to have security in the stack, and that's what this addresses," Anderson said. "I am encouraging them to keep doubling down on that one in 2026."
Not related to the NVIDIA partnership but solidly focused on distributed AI is Cisco's new Unified Edge offering, according to Anderson. The Unified Edge, announced in November, is an integrated package of networking, compute and storage aimed at helping enterprise customers more efficiently handle data from AI and other workloads at the edge, where the data is typically created.
Ultimately, customers are moving from centralized genAI clusters in the data center to highly distributed AI that lives closer to the edge where data is created, Anderson said. "This package offers the distributed performance and simplicity we think will be an important, useful offering for customers."